Adelaide's giant pandas give the thumbs up to their new enclosures

Just over a fortnight after they were given full range of their enclosures, the pandas are loving their new homes in Adelaide.

Released into the outdoor sections once they had cleared quarantine and acclimatised, it has been a nervous time for both the pandas and the designers at the Adelaide Zoo.

"There's no panda bears in the southern hemisphere and there are only seven zoos in the whole world that actually have panda bear exhibits," says Hassel landscape designer Sharon Mackay.

Working on the project for three years, Sharon and her team of designers went to extraordinary lengths to make sure the pandas were comfortable in their new homes, able to happily roam around, and hopefully, during their 10 year stay produce offspring.

Travelling to the United States to review four of the seven other enclosures in the world, the design team gained insights on what worked well and not so well, and were able to utilise that knowledge and adapt it to provide the southern hemispheres first enclosure.

Featuring water-chilled rocks that can be cooled to 12 degrees, waterfalls, pools and water misters for the pandas to keep cool, plus over 5000 plants and 900 tonnes of rock in the exhibit for the pandas to climb on.

Several well-established trees were sourced from around Australia for the enclosures, with Wang Wang already scaling one of the trees to have a look around the zoo.

"What we have tried to do is provide them with as much opportunity and variety as possible.

"The outdoor exhibits are around 600 square metres each, there's lots of space for them to explore."

The two pandas have very different personalities and show just as differing preferences to items on their areas.

Wang Wang, the male, displays a robust and carefree personality and is commonly seen scaling his favourite tree and climbing along ,and falling off, some of the logs in the outdoor area.

"He's a real bloke and he's very much enjoying showing off for the crowds."

Funi, the female, is a little more shy and recluse, and has shown a liking to her wading pool, enjoying splashing her paws in the water.

And if an item does not interest the pandas, the displays can be adjusted to keep the pandas both mentally and physically active.

"Everything is entirely flexible, and there's a large number of zoo staff, from horticulturalists, to educators, through to the actual keepers themselves who are really monitoring and adjusting things as they go, on a daily basis."

Facilities behind the displays include research laboratories where keepers can easily rotate the animals, weigh, monitor the diets and take urine samples from the pandas, with the centre of the undercover enclosure sporting a glass-fronted 'looking glass' style passage that lets the public see into the areas.

With pandas arboreal by nature, often found climbing and sleeping in trees, it's surprising to see just how agile they can be on the enclosure's trees.

"The one in particular that you see in Wang Wang's enclosure is 13 metres high, about four storeys of a building, and so far he has been up about half way."

When planning the exhibit, every angle was thought of to make sure the finished product was best for the visitors and the pandas, which often lead to some interesting conversations with suppliers.

"The paint we have used on some of the primary barriers for the panda bears, we had to call the suppliers and make sure that it wasn't toxic for animals, which was a very odd phone call.

"Likewise we had to prototype a lot of the chilled rocks to make sure they worked and the chilled it to a certain temperature for the panda bears."

The hard work paid off initially for the team with the Chinese delegation approving the exhibit prior to the bears arriving.

By the looks of the cheeky glances Wang Wang gave whilst he bounded along his rocks, and the way Funi was sprawled out on her back asleep in her enclosure whilst we were there, you could assume the feeling from the pandas is mutual.